24. Charleigh

TWENTY-FOUR

CHARLEIGH

River

You thinking about runnin'?

I bit my lip to ward off the rush of eager anticipation that gushed through me when I opened my phone to find the waiting text from him.

It'd been three days since things had gotten heavy between us. Three days since I'd cut myself open and allowed him to see a piece of me that I'd thought would be forever unexposed.

Three days since I'd given a view of the most broken, fractured pieces of me then had turned around and offered him the hope he'd sparked inside me.

The need.

This…this…expectancy that had bloomed and filled my aching chest with something new.

I had the sneaking suspicion that what I was feeling was joy, but it'd been so long since I'd experienced it that I couldn't be sure.

During the last few days, he'd gone back to playful, and God, I loved it. Loved when I woke up or took my lunch break or powered up my phone after work that there was always some message waiting for me .

Constant reminders that he was there. That maybe…maybe I didn't have to be alone anymore after all.

Grinning as I pushed through the front door of the medical office, I tapped out a reply.

Me

Not today, Guardian Angel.

I could almost feel his scoff ripple through the distance.

The first time I'd called him that, he'd warned me that he was no angel, but I couldn't help but tease him about it, anyway.

Even though I meant it. There was something about him that made me feel protected. Watched over.

I blinked rapidly as I stepped out into the bright rays of the late afternoon sun. It'd be hot if it wasn't for the breeze that whispered through the woods that surrounded the town.

Easiness billowed, and I felt it.

The fact that this place was becoming a sanctuary.

A refuge.

I wouldn't try to deny that it didn't have everything to do with the people I'd met here.

Raven and Nolan gliding into the vacancy. Assuaging it with their care and their laughter and their friendship. It was a rare day that Raven wasn't standing at the door of Moonflower after I got off work, waiting to drag me inside so she could flick the lock and pull me into the back so we could share a bottle of wine.

We'd giggle and chat and goof around, though we both seemed to skate over the more substantial topics. Each tiptoeing, seen and understood without actual confessions to support it.

But River? River was an entirely different story.

He was a riot to my senses and a whisper to my soul.

There was no doubting it when another text blipped through as I walked across the parking lot.

River

Good girl. You wouldn't want me to have to hunt you down.

Giddiness rushed, bounding through my system, and there was nothing I could do to curb the affected smile that tugged at the edge of my mouth.

Me

Stalker, much?

River

You have no idea.

My stomach twisted in a bout of greed and a fluttering of anticipation.

I could still feel him against my lips. Could feel the tingles that remained even though it'd been close to two weeks since he'd kissed me the second time inside my apartment.

My stomach fisted in that throbby, achy sensation that felt oh so sweet but wasn't even in the range of being enough. This want that burned.

But it was my heart that squeezed in fierce affection that warned that I was veering into the treacherous.

I knew I was only setting myself up to get destroyed again. Getting attached to a man who'd made it clear that this was only temporary. But there was no stopping the way I felt pulled in his direction.

The man a magnet.

Gravity.

I was still staring at my phone when I hit the sidewalk that ran along 9 th Street. My attention was tipped down at my phone, though I made sure to watch where I was going in my periphery, my fingers loose as I played along.

Me

Oh, but I have plenty of ideas.

River

That so?

I could almost see the arch of his menacing brow, the way the stars tattooed on his hairline would dance as he did, everything about him so cruelly beautiful, though those stormy eyes would be softened with the tease.

Me

Yep. This imagination is wild. I should be an author.

River

You know what they say, truth is stranger than fiction.

Another warning. The man was forever pushing me away all while drawing me in. He might as well have had a leash around my neck.

I had my fingers poised on the screen when something tripped me up.

A creeping awareness that rustled through on the breeze. The breeze that suddenly felt hot and sticky.

I glanced around, trying to pinpoint what it might be that had made me uneasy. Uneasy enough that I couldn't do anything but slow to a complete stop in the middle of the sidewalk.

A few people moved around me, casting me curious glances, while I tried to steady myself.

Apprehension gusted, coming at me in waves, and the fine hairs lifted on the back of my neck.

Spiky pinpricks that raised like defensive quills. Licking out for whatever had caused the shift in the air.

I felt caught in the middle of it, though I put my head down and forced myself to keep moving.

Covertly, my gaze darted all around as I walked, searching every direction.

The cars.

The sidewalk.

The buildings.

Nothing seemed out of order, but the sense wouldn't abate. It was the same sense that normally would send me packing my things and leaving town. The same sense I'd gotten a couple weeks ago at the festival.

Was it paranoia?

Nothing less than a coping mechanism that clicked into action when I slowed for too long?

When my spirit warned I'd spent too much time idle?

Demanding I put one foot in front of the other since it was the only way I knew how to survive?

Except I didn't want to leave. Couldn't .

Drawing in a steadying breath, I kept my head down but my attention keen as I hurried down the sidewalk.

At just after five, the street was busy with those leaving work, and a ton of people were coming in and out of the buildings I passed.

I could find no comfort in the numbers, though.

The safety I'd been feeling a moment ago had been ripped out from under me.

I increased my pace, hustling by the commercial buildings that surrounded on each side.

Medical clinics, the lab, and a few offices.

They soon fell away as I headed in the direction of my apartment.

When I got to the intersection, the crosswalk light was red, and I paused, keeping my head low but trying to inconspicuously glance around at my surroundings. I scanned through the faces, over the cars, trying to understand what it was that set me on edge.

The problem was, the tiniest thing could do it.

Only this time, I swore I saw the shape of someone duck behind the wall of the building just in the distance.

Dread washed through me on a current, a crashing of desperation that dumped into my stomach. The red light changed, and I rushed across the crosswalk to the other side.

Though rather than continuing down the block to my building like I normally would do, I hurried across the intersecting road.

If someone was there? After me? I couldn't lead them back to my apartment. Raven would be at Moonflower, watching for me out the window.

There was no way I'd bring danger to her door. And if it was nothing? I couldn't stomach the idea of her seeing me this way again.

Shivering and afraid.

Running.

I kept peeking over my shoulder as I hurried by the buildings that ran along Broadway, which was the street that connected 9 th and Culberry.

I silently chanted, praying that I was only making things up.

Letting panic set in the way I'd done for years .

For so long, I'd allowed it to own me.

But I didn't want that.

Not anymore.

I wanted to stay.

I wanted to stay.

But how could I do that if there was a chance I'd been found? Discovered?

I looked again, peering through the mass of people who were traveling the streets.

I glimpsed him again.

A man loitering back about a hundred yards, though I was sure it was the same person who'd hidden themselves behind the wall a minute ago.

A shadow.

A wraith.

A ghost catching up to me.

No.

No, no, no, no.

Panic rose in a tide of stinging bile, filling my chest and climbing up my throat. Breaths panted from my spasming lungs, and the air wheezed in and out.

I glanced again.

He was there.

A man wearing a khaki jacket and brown pants.

He'd grown nearer, though I still couldn't fully make out his features with the glare of the sun.

But I was sure of it. He was tracking me.

Terror tore through my bloodstream, setting fire to my nerves, and I started to jog. Pushing between people, jostling them aside in my haste.

"Hey, watch where you're going," a man shouted as I knocked into him from the side.

I didn't slow to apologize.

I couldn't.

I had to get away. I had to get away .

I made it to the next street.

Culberry.

I didn't wait for the light to turn, I darted across it. A car horn blared and tires screeched. A startled scream burst out of me, and I whirled that way, my hands pushed out in front of me like they might protect me from the impact.

I gasped as the car careened to a stop an inch away.

The woman driving was shouting obscenities, gesturing her frustration and fear through the windshield.

"I'm sorry," I wheezed through a haggard cry, my hands in supplication as I stumbled the rest of the way across the street to the sidewalk on the other side.

I went right.

Drawn.

Fumbling through the mass that roamed the trendy street.

People shopping.

Browsing.

Laughing as they chatted.

Unaware that I was certain my life was slipping out from under me.

Anxiety hit me in a full-fledged attack, and I wheezed for air, for oxygen, choking over the sob that was stuck in the middle of my throat.

By the time I tore through the door, tears were streaming in hot waves down my cheeks.

The security system beeped, and one second later, River was towering in the opening of his station.

Dark, dark eyes a toiling storm. A protective rage instantly in his stance.

"Charleigh?"

And at the sound of my name, I dropped to my knees.